This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Current processes for producing high purity bi-component materials, such as refractory metal parts, include powder and ingot metallurgy. The ingot metallurgy process begins with selecting and blending suitable powders, pressing into bars, and sintering. An electron beam or plasma or arc furnace is used to melt the bar in an inert atmosphere and cool it into an ingot. The melting can be done in multiple steps. Electron beam melting and re-melting removes impurities to produce an essentially pure ingot. The ingot is thermo-mechanically processed and further cold or hot worked as needed (or cold worked with intermediate annealing) to produce a desired shape such as plate, sheet, rod or fabricated. Components may also be machined directly from ingots.
The sintering process consumes a significant amount of furnace time, but it is required to provide sufficient mechanical strength in the bars and is a preliminary deoxidation step for the refractory metal powder, such as tantalum. The bars are usually electron beam-melted under a hard vacuum to remove impurities. The electron beam melting process can also consume a significant amount of furnace time and power.
Laser additive manufacturing is a direct deposition process that uses a high power laser and powder feeding system to produce complex three-dimensional components from metal powders. The high power laser and multi-axis positioning system work directly from a CAD file to build up the component using a suitable metal powder. This process is similar to conventional rapid prototyping techniques such as stereolithography, selective laser sintering (SLS), and laser welding. Laser welding was developed to join two components or to fabricate an article integral to a component. Such a laser process has been used to manufacture near-net shape titanium components for the aerospace industry.
To date, an additive manufacturing process does not exist for higher temperature bi-component refractory and tooling materials, or bi-materials, where one material is sensitive to the high energy applied by the laser. The application of a directed high-energy beam to a powder mixture can cause damage to one or more of its constituent components. In this regard, this energy can cause undesired phase and structural changes within one or both of these component materials. As an example, superconductors encapsulated into a metal matrix are highly sensitive to the application of a laser induced energy which may destroy their superconducting capabilities. Additional problems can occur when the application of a laser to a powder mixture leads to undesired chemical reactions between the materials. As such, there is a need for an additive manufacturing system which overcomes some of the deficiencies listed above and allows for a more creative combination of materials.